The Latest Royal Pain / Should the queen abdicate throne?

LIZ SMITH, Newsday

Published
4:00 am PDT, Tuesday, April 10, 2001

The latest royal family mess went on for a week without much impact in the United States, but its fallout in Great Britain has been titanic. It seems that Prince Edward's wife, the former Sophie Rhys-Jones, a PR expert, was bedazzled by a fake sheikh with a hidden mike and hidden camera into making some inappropriate remarks about the royals for the benefit of a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper.

Then, in an effort to stanch her indiscretions, wherein she'd said Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles would probably marry "when the old lady dies" (meaning the Queen Mother) and wherein she'd called the queen "the poor old dear," and blasted a few other public figures, she agreed to give an official interview.

The Countess of Wessex also offered the press a chance to ask her if her husband is gay (she insisted he isn't) whether they sleep in separate rooms (she said no) and whether they will have children (she hopes so and would not rule out artificial insemination). Later, adding insult to injury, it was revealed in the London press that Sophie's business partner sometimes enjoyed "the occasional line of cocaine," and offered young boys, as well as sex tours of Asia, to clients. Sophie resigned from the business she was plugging away at. (She and Prince Edward simply couldn't get by on their miserly 185,000 tax- free bucks a year from Queen Elizabeth II.) But after all that, in a stunning example of how Buckingham Palace public relations are rather an oxymoron -- the original secret interview got out anyway.

So last week I went on Larry King to talk about all of this with author Robert Lacey and royalty expert Harold Brooks-Baker of "Burke's Peerage," the British "Who's Who" of royalty. Before our segment came up, Larry presented some of the most important people in and out of government to discuss our hostages in China. Thus, I was sitting in the New York studio with a friend, former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. He was in a jolly mood and offered to let me be the China expert while he would take on the royals in my place. In either case, Holbrooke's answer to everything was: "This is just an incident, not yet a crisis!"

I like the royals and find them diverting and a good excuse for glamorous fun in newspapers at their expense. Also, they are excellent for British tourism. But I did find my two British gentlemen talkers rather stuffy. I suggested that -- since all kinds of dirty laundry has already been hung out on the line in England (just as in the United States) -- perhaps the only solution would be for the queen to abdicate in favor of her son, Prince Charles. He could then marry his longtime mistress, Camilla, and they would be splendid parents to his and the late Diana's two fabulous-looking and much- appreciated sons, William and Harry. And then things in Great Britain might get back on track.

I added also that Sophie's remarks were a tempest in a teapot compared with other horrid things printed in the papers and said by Charles to Camilla via taped secret phone calls in the past.

Mr. Lacey was huffy with me. Really, how dare I suggest that the queen abdicate? He said she couldn't abdicate as she was an "anointed monarch" and must stay on the throne until she dies. Well, she has been darned ineffectual in controlling her immediate family, shoring up the prestige of the monarchy, or entering the 20th or the 21st century, for that matter. And who says she can't abdicate? Richard II abdicated and so did Edward VIII. The queen could easily plead illness and pass her crown to her long-awaiting son. He could then make a new start.